


The Road to Recovery

by Harmako



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles
Genre: A little fluff and angst, AU where I merge the end of the game and future connected, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Basically a lot happens, Beta Read, Body Modification, Canon-Typical Violence, Epilogue: Xenoblade Chronicles Future Connected Spoilers, F/M, Fiora is chaotic and Sharla is tired, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Honestly really self-indulgent, I just really didn’t like the ending of Future Connected, Implied Fiora/Shulk, Implied Sharla/Reyn, M/M, Major Spoilers for Xenoblade Chronicles, Mentions of Alvis/Kallian, Missing Persons, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Game(s), a bit of angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 07:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26349058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harmako/pseuds/Harmako
Summary: When Fiora awakens from her six long months spent in the regeneration chamber, the last thing she expects to find waiting for her is a dark, silent room, and not one of her friends in sight.As she takes her first shaky steps out into an unfamiliar world in her newly reformed body, Fiora knows something is very,verywrong.— — —A postgame fic set in an alternate universe where the events of Future Connected occurred during the months Fiora was regenerating her Homs body. Shulk and Melia failed to defeat the Fog King and close the rift, and as a result, things ended up a little bit... differently.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 18





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> A special thank you to [kuriwrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuriwrites/pseuds/kuriwrites) for taking on the tremendous task of beta reading this mess for me! You’re awesome (:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: I’ve drawn a little [something](https://twitter.com/makieruu/status/1314462587468169216?s=20) pertaining to this chapter if you’d like to take a look! (:
> 
> Ahhh okay, here we are! My very first attempt at a multi-chapter fic (albeit a smaller one). I’ve been working on the plot/drafting of this fic since late August, and I think it’s finally time for me to share what I’ve come up with. Xenoblade has inspired me in a lot more ways than one, and I’m working to branch out in my writing and artwork. This will be a huge learning experience for me, as I’m not very comfortable in writing dialogue, action, or scenery — so I would really appreciate kudos, comments, and any feedback you may have. Let me know what I’m doing right, what I’m doing wrong, and whether or not you’re excited to see more! 
> 
> My life is pretty busy at the moment, so I will say right now that updates to this fic will be slow. Despite this, I fully intend to see it finished, and am really excited to write the later chapters. I’d originally hoped to post this prelude when I’d had mostly, if not entirely, finished chapter 1, however it’s still in the works; I had to post this because of drafting constraints. So, think of this as a teaser for when chapter 1 is uploaded sometime in the near future.
> 
> This is 100% a self-indulgent fic, but I sincerely thank you for checking it out, and I hope you enjoy!

_Shulk._

There was only darkness. A bottomless, midnight sea. The dark was relentless. It crushed him underneath the weight of its endlessness, choked him in a suffocating black. The darkness was unforgiving, cruel; but somehow, simultaneously, it drew him in. It made him want to stay, placating him in an eerie, twisted kind of way.

It was everything, and he was nothing. Insignificant.

Its goal may have been to trap, to kill, but Shulk found himself content in the snare he had been caught in.

_Shulk._

There was, however, something that simmered just below the surface, beyond the realm of recognition, that gave him pause. Almost like a warning, a tugging toward another place that stubbornly persisted.

Shulk chose to ignore that warning, even if it was wrong.

_Shulk. Wake up._

Still, that warning came, again and again, a persistent plea to _wake up_. Shulk did not want to wake up. To wake up meant to end this blissful, ignorant existence; to wake up meant something was there to wake up for. He was not sure he wanted to acknowledge that.

_Shulk. You must wake up, or it will be too late._

Something became urgent in the tugging, a desperate attempt to remove the blanket of shadow from over top of him. Irritation sparked within him. He wanted to stay. 

_Shulk. You must remember._

The foreign tugging became a forceful clawing, digging under his skin and fighting to dispel the haze over his thoughts. He would have cried out had he been able to, but he could not make a sound.

The claws pulled him from the darkness as it fought back, threatening to submerge him once again. He almost let it.

But something made him hesitate. A distant memory, a voice he could not commit to name.

His hesitation was all it took for the claws to drag him free. 

Alvis.

An administrative computer of a phase transition experiment facility.

Words he remembered, but could not understand. 

The words popped into his head like firecrackers and with them came a face, a body. A person he knew—a puzzle piece clicked into place.

 _Where am I?_ Shulk asked, not to anyone in particular.

Regardless, a voice answered him. 

_The universe has been torn asunder, Shulk. The very reality we exist in threatens to collapse under a dying wish made by a vengeful god._

A memory manifested in his mind, brought forth by those words. Zanza. A name he could remember, although he was not sure what importance it held here.

_How… How do we fix it?_

_In your current state, there is not much to be done. I have run my diagnostics in an attempt to determine and analyze every possible solution, however I have yet to be successful._

Shulk had a hard time comprehending these words.

 _Alvis,_ he replied for, somehow, he knew that was his name, _I… I don’t understand. What’s happened to me?_

_Like many others influenced by what you called_ the Rift _, your very being has been corrupted by the virus that plagues this world. It is a miracle I was able to break through to you at all in this state._

_I don’t understand,_ Shulk reiterated. 

His focus on Alvis’ next words was broken, however, by the sudden returning pull of the darkness.  
_Come back,_ it whispered, _it is safe here._  
Despite the curiosity Alvis’ message had sparked within him, the call of the dark was inviting, a familiarity he craved.  
He wanted it back.

 _Shulk,_ Alvis called, an attempt at bringing him back.

_Time has run short. Do not lose faith. I see a possibility of salvation, however slim… it appears that our late god has forgotten something crucial. The other half to the world that once was.  
It may be our best chance._

That odd reassurance brought forth images, whorls and bursts of colour, distorted voices and fuzzy memories. Green eyes, warm laughter that gave him butterflies. A rough, calloused hand on his shoulder. Dark hair, a strength he could not begin to comprehend. Brilliant, white wings, eerie flashes of red and blue. Golden light, searing pain, loss and hurt like he had never felt before. He reached out to catch them, but the feelings and half-formed pictures slipped through his hands like sand.

 _Don’t go,_ Shulk found himself thinking, disappointment clouding his thoughts.

Alvis hummed, a noise that seemed to reverberate through Shulk’s very being.  
_Now you have begun to see._

Shulk did not bother to ask what Alvis was referring to. The shadows were creeping closer, twisting his perception of the oddly familiar presence he spoke to. The world behind his shrouded memories began to vanish, leaving his mind bit by bit.

 _Do not lose faith,_ Alvis repeated, _rest now. I see a light at the end of this tunnel._

Shulk wanted to ask what this light was, he wanted to ask how Alvis was here, what he meant, and why he had unearthed such mysteries in his wake. He had a thousand questions, but they were quickly fading, swallowed by the dark. Like an endless, lightless ocean, the darkness washed all of his newfound curiosities away, pulling him down, down, deeper and deeper.

His thoughts grew fuzzy. Perhaps, someday, he would be able to ask his questions. Alvis _had_ told him not to worry, after all.  
In his renewed peace, the ignorance brought about by the shadows, Shulk chose to forget yet again. For now, he was content to ignore the nagging thoughts and fleeting pictures, and let the darkness claim him once more.


	2. From Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to apologize for how long it took me to post this! Originally it was only supposed to be a week or two after the initial posting of the prelude, but life got in the way. :")  
> Regardless, thank you for all of the encouraging comments and kudos on the first chapter! Feedback and support really fuels me.  
> You may have noticed the chapter count has been upped by one, and that’s because I actually had to split this chapter into two! It’s a big one. 
> 
> Look forward to some concept art n’ other goodies with the next update! I’ve put a lot of work into this AU. Let me know what you think of this chapter, and/or whether you liked it or not, I’d love to hear what you think! Thank you so much for reading!

The first thing Fiora became aware of was a hum.

A soft noise, faint and foreign in the dark. A repetitive, comforting and gentle sound that helped her to slowly regain focus—focus that she had somehow lost. Focus that she apparently needed, that she had once had. She thought this was odd but did not stop to question it. She allowed it to bring her back to the realm of thought.  
The hum was gentle, the only thing she’d heard in what felt like a millennia.  
A millennia since what exactly… she could not remember.

The second thing Fiora became aware of was the dark.  
It was very dark. Lightless and endless. The world was quiet but not in an unpleasant way. The darkness was peaceful, fuzzy, and warm. It was total, all-encompassing, a blanket over her thoughts.

She was content here, she realized. She had no qualms with the dark, nor the hum.

Although somewhere deep, deep down, Fiora thought that maybe she was missing something.

Despite her attempts to ignore them, hazy pictures and unfamiliar words persistently pushed their way to the forefront of her mind. Like leaves in the wind, they sailed through her thoughts, leaving just as quickly as they had come.  
She saw flashes of people that she supposed she should know, heard names and voices that she couldn’t quite recall. A soft smile, a hearty laugh. Feelings and memories she couldn’t decipher.

She thought of a name, one that seemed to frequent the cacophony of her memories and thoughts.

 _Reyn…_  
Fiora thought she knew Reyn. Reyn sounded familiar in a way she couldn’t quite grasp. She could almost see a face, hear a voice, but both slipped her mind before she could really remember.

She knew Reyn, she was sure of it. So why couldn’t she remember?  
She very much disliked this newfound feeling of not _knowing._  
Even if it was a silly thought, Fiora wished the dark would return to swallow her. She would much rather the blissful ignorance that the shadows brought than the confusion and strife she now suffered. 

Reyn, Reyn, Reyn. Reyn and… 

_Shulk._

_Shulk. Dunban. Sharla. Melia. Riki._

With a searing flash of blinding light, a sharp _snap_ in her mind, her dark, comforting world shattered, and Fiora jolted awake. 

At least, she thought she was awake. She realized that she couldn’t see. She strained to see, blinking desperately until she felt her eyes burn. This darkness was different than the previous kind, a harsh and suffocating pressure pushing down upon her, smothering her. Her heart pounded against her ribs, her eyes moving frantically in the dark. It was so dark. She couldn’t move. Why couldn’t she move? Where was she? Where were Reyn and Shulk? 

Panic began to close its claws around her throat, squeezing the air from her lungs. She could not remember where she was. She did not understand why everything was so dark. She wanted to wake up, for this had to be a nightmare.  
The dark surrounded her, no longer comforting, but choking. 

_Wake up, wake up, help me, help me, HELP ME—_

Then, abruptly, the humming was back—and it was loud. Louder than it had ever been before.

There came a high-pitched, mechanical sound from the shadows. She felt something move.

And then Fiora fell.

She hit the floor with a sickening thud, metal meeting her forearms as she tried in vain to break her fall. She cried out in pain, disoriented in the pitch black.

Wherever she was, the floor was ice cold, and she immediately became aware of how little she was wearing. Some kind of rough fabric rubbed against her shoulders, the feeling entirely alien. She shivered, pain shooting up her left side, but made no attempt to move from her crumpled position at the foot of the place—the thing—she’d fallen from.

Her mind was fuzzy, her thoughts murky; new, long-forgotten feelings barely registering. It was as if she had just awoken from a long and deep sleep. Her limbs felt like they were weighed down with lead. 

_Where am I? Am I alive? Where are the others?_ Her questions bounced off of invisible walls in her mind, reverberating through her thoughts.

But then, as the initial shock of the fall wore off, leaving a dull, aching soreness throughout her entire body, she finally remembered. 

The cold that was sinking deep into her bones, warning of a chill that would plague her for hours to come; her shuddering body, muscles, and skin, and a heart that was beating with a fervour. She gasped sharply, a breathless, incredulous noise. A feeling of nervous wonder crept up her spine. She tentatively stretched her legs out into the dark, her breath hitching as she began to explore the feeling of skin and sensation she thought she would never feel again.

Her legs and arms were made of flesh, muscle, and bone. Her hands, too. Perfect fingernails and cuticles, familiar stretching feeling along the skin of her wrists. Where there had once been metal, there now was pale skin. Where there once had been wire and plates, there was now a pulse.

She knew where she was, now; this was the regeneration chamber.

Memories flooded in like a torrential rain as she recalled the day where, months before, she had stood outside of the chamber, in this very room, alone with Shulk, Dunban, and Reyn. Melia, Riki, and Sharla had chosen to stay outside, Melia mumbling something about how this was a moment meant for the four of them, smiling softly and promising Fiora they would see her again soon.

She remembered clinging to Shulk with tears in her eyes, all at once fearful, hopeful, and full of apprehension. Dunban had pulled her into a hug afterward, tearing up. It had been a rare moment of weakness for him, but Fiora had been grateful for it. Reyn had hugged her after that, and she had craved the day when she would be able to feel him squeeze her so tight again.

Fiora had made her recovery. She was back in her body, her real body. No longer did she feel frail and weak, unable to commit to the simplest of tasks. Shulk, Linada, and Sharla’s work had paid off. 

So where were they now?

Words popped into her head as abruptly as Reyn’s name had back in the darkness. She remembered a promise, _Shulk’s_ promise to her all those months ago.

 _Only six months and you’ll be back on your feet, Fiora! Then we can go back to the beach, like you wanted. Maybe we can swim._ He’d smiled. It had been charming, the way he’d looked away in a flustered hurry. _I’ll… we’ll all be here for you when you wake up. I promise._

She pictured his warm, gentle smile. He was not here, and she suddenly felt incredibly alone.

While momentarily cheered up by the discovery that she was back, that she was _fixed,_ Fiora felt a familiar cold sense of fear come crawling back, smothering her joy. She curled her knees back against her chest, wincing at the movement.  
Her eyes had barely adjusted to the dark, and she strained to make out the rest of the room. Unfortunately, she was unsuccessful in identifying anything other than blurry shadows and shapes.

Coming down from her euphoric high, Fiora began to feel a sense of unease creep over her.

“Sh-Shulk?” She whispered, her voice scratchy and hoarse from disuse.

No answer.

“Shulk?” She tried again, a little louder, as much as her throat would allow.

Fiora was once again met with silence.  
She swallowed, any semblance of joy and relief shrivelled up inside of her.  
Shulk’s last words replayed in her head again, like some kind of perpetual loop she couldn’t turn off. Where was he? Why was the regeneration chamber in darkness, the air cold and stagnant? She was hardly aware of the burning behind her eyelids until she felt a dampness against her eyelashes.

“Dunban?”

No response.

“Anyone?”

She got nothing back but that deep, aching feeling of loneliness. The tears gathering in her eyes threatened to overflow, and she tried, futilely, to draw in air, her breaths stuttering and uneven. As the eerie quiet fell over her once more, she realized, with a sinking, cold feeling, that something was terribly, _terribly_ wrong.

What if something had happened to Shulk and the others? To her brother? What if they were injured, or even worse, dead? They couldn’t be dead. No… they couldn’t be. Not after everything. 

But as she lay there, trembling despite herself and attempting to stifle the sobs that had begun to wrack her body, Fiora was starting to believe that maybe it was true—why else was she all alone?

She was crying now, salty tears leaving hot tracks down her cheeks.  
Something pricked at her, poking at her brain. It forcibly shoved its way into the dark spiral of her thoughts. A feeling she couldn’t name stirred deep within her. Something that burned brightly for a single moment, like an ember kicked out of a fire, before extinguishing in a burst of warmth. Something like a gentle push, urging her to go on.  
She sniffed, rubbing at her face with trembling hands. The warmth spread throughout her body, a calming, numbing sensation. She drew in a deep breath.

 _Stop it, Fiora,_ she chided herself, _you don’t know anything for sure. Not yet._  
Irrationally, she thought of kicking herself. She was stronger than this. Perhaps her brief time spent in the new world before her entry into the regeneration chamber had softened her; the old Fiora would never be so fragile. Not like this. The old Fiora would get up, dust herself off, and set things straight. She had no idea what had happened, or where her family was, but that did not mean she should cry. Dunban wouldn’t want her to cry, nor Shulk and Reyn.

Inwardly, she thanked the warmth, the spark, the burst of rationality that had reminded her of who she was, even if it had been, well, her. _Fiora._ She was Fiora—and she would not give up so quickly.

She slowly began to untangle her limbs from where they’d been wrapped tightly around herself, tentatively sitting up. She blinked a few times to dispel the last traces of tears from her eyes. She was mildly irked to find that she could still not see a thing; the darkness was absolute. Now that she thought about it, that was rather odd. Shouldn’t there have been windows somewhere? Or if not windows, at least some sort of opening for some light, albeit a little, to filter through? She couldn’t remember exactly what the regeneration chamber’s room looked like, only that it had been very shiny and pristine—befitting of High Entian technology—since Melia, Linada, and Shulk had tidied it up. Regardless, it was strange that there was not even the slightest bit of light to be found. 

She scooted around in a circle, using her feet to pivot her body, and realized that, actually, there was _some_ light, if the small spot of softly glowing blue coming from in front of her counted for anything.  
She reached out to touch it, cautiously brushing her fingers over the bright dot. She was met with what felt like a tiny light, hard and fairly cold. 

_Oh, that must be on the side of the chamber,_ she realized. It occurred to her that when she’d fallen, she must have fallen from the regeneration chamber itself, but had failed to recognize it in her panic. She wondered why the regeneration chamber had just… turned off. That was strange. Maybe the ancient piece of technology just knew when its patients were fully healed? If that was the case, surely Linada or Sharla would’ve been here to facilitate her exit. They probably would’ve fussed over it, knowing Sharla, and as much as it pained her, that conclusion helped to reinforce her theory that something _had_ happened to them.

Subdued, she turned away from the chamber’s little light and back into darkness. She shivered again. It was so quiet with nothing but her breathing to fill the room. 

_Okay, one foot in front of the other._

Fiora reached out and placed a hand on the surface of the chamber to steady herself. She brushed her fingers over the metal, but found no grooves to lodge her fingers in. She hoped she wouldn’t slip.  
As she moved onto her knees, however, she immediately became aware of how… _abnormal_ her legs felt; like she wasn’t completely in control of her limbs. A side effect, she supposed, of regenerating practically an entirely new body. She was starting to think that walking wouldn’t be a very good idea, even though she so desperately wanted nothing more than to get up and sprint out of the room.  
She sat there for a moment, unsure. 

_It’s going to take more than some unsteady legs to stop me,_ she decided.

She moved to put her hands down in front of her, only wincing for a moment as the coldness of the floor touched her skin. 

_Improvise, adapt, overcome, Fiora._

She began to crawl. It wasn’t her ideal mode of movement, but she didn’t exactly have many other options at the moment. The floor was still numbingly cold against her knees and palms, but she did her best to ignore it.  
Every few seconds, she stopped to tentatively wave one of her hands in front of her, feeling for any potential obstacles or obstructions. So far, her route was clear, but she had absolutely no way to tell what direction she was going in. All she had to go off was the faint, tiny light, and subsequently, the regeneration chamber. 

Time was irrelevant. She had no idea how many minutes, or hours, had passed in this space. When she finally hit the outside world, would her eyes even be able to handle the light anymore? Maybe her eyes wouldn’t adjust, maybe she’d go blind. Perhaps there was some terrible side effect to being in a body-regenerating capsule for months. What if her legs never worked again? Would she be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life? Deep down, she knew these were irrational fears, but at the same time, she couldn’t shake her apprehension. She wished Sharla was there, or even Linada. Someone she could consult. 

Was the dark getting… lighter? Just a little? Fiora could swear it was. Even just by a shade or two; she thought she could see in front of her a little better.  
With renewed hope, she started to crawl faster, ignoring the newfound soreness in her knees. There! There was light—faint, pale, barely there—but it was light. Real light that had come from outside.  
Briefly consumed by excitement, Fiora forewent her check of the space in front of her—and immediately smacked right into a wall.

She let out a wail and pushed herself backward away from the cold metal. She rubbed her nose in indignation, hoping it wasn’t bleeding.

_That hurt._

But then, to her complete shock, the wall opened.

And in came… nothing?

She threw an arm over her eyes, expecting to be blinded by light… but she didn’t feel any sort of thing pushing against her eyelids. It was as dark as ever. There was, however, some sort of breeze that brushed against her skin and made locks of hair tickle her ears.  
Although her nose still throbbed from colliding with the door and her eyes were screwed tightly shut, a burst of exhilaration shot through her. She was out! She’d found the door!  
Steeling herself, she slowly shifted her arm and cracked an eye open.

At first, she couldn’t see much of anything. The darkness of the regeneration chamber clung to her, and she couldn’t see through what should’ve been the door itself. 

Tentatively, she crawled to the exit, a hand still shielding her face. 

She opened her eyes again, blinking hard.  
Suddenly, Fiora realized that she _could_ see through the door.  
There was light, but not the light she would’ve ever expected. In fact, the world she could now see from the doorway of the chamber was never what she’d expected at all.  
Never in a million years.

The world was grey. Dark and dreary. A breeze blew past her face, the same one she’d felt back inside, but it was warm. Stale.  
The sky was _black_. An endless void that churned above her, choking everything as far as the eye could see. There was some kind of violent glow in the furthest reaches of the sky, where the sun would be, like some ghostly solar eclipse. A crackling storm of menacing lights on the distant horizon reached its tendrils of orange hungrily into the world. The air was heavy in a strange way. It felt as if an ominous fog was hanging over her.  
Fiora trembled in terror, crouched on the dying grass.

_This isn’t right. This isn’t right at all._

She turned fearfully and looked out at what was supposedly New Colony 9 from a hill far above it all; homes and structures sprawled out towards the sea, but there was not a person in sight. Not a whisper of a voice or a trace of any living being but herself. The ocean swelling in front of her was an abyss, as black as the sky, that stretched into the distance forever. It was as if she was looking straight into a void with no boundary between sea and sky... or between nightmare and reality. 

She was rooted to the spot, her eyes blown wide as she gazed upon a dark, foreign world. A small part of her kept praying that this was a nightmare, that she would wake up from her regeneration for certain this time, with Shulk and Dunban and all of her friends there to catch her. She wanted to pinch herself, to scream at herself to wake up, but she couldn’t move an inch. She was paralyzed by overwhelming fear—fear that she was the only one left in this desolate new land.

 _Move. Go. Continue on, seek others out._ A voice that didn’t quite sound like her own spoke to her, an echo in her thoughts, prodding her like the spark had back in the dark of the regeneration chamber. Fiora was beginning to think that she had adopted a new kind of conscience, a version of herself to help her escape this place and keep her on track.  
Truthfully, she was thankful. She needed someone to guide her, even if that person was just a part of herself. She didn’t think she could do it alone. 

Feeling faint, Fiora turned back to look at the regeneration chamber. The technologically advanced doorway was built into the cliffs, but a section that seemed to be of Colony origin protruded partially from the rocks a few meters away. The whole of it was an ancient building that Linada, Shulk, and Sharla had helped to reconstruct. They’d consulted Melia, too, she remembered. The High Entian princess had been more knowledgeable on the inner workings of the antique technology than they had been. 

Fiora’s gaze drifted back to the new Colony behind her again. She needed to get down to the streets of the Colony—that way, she would be able to find out if there was anyone left down there. Gods, she prayed that there was someone, anyone down there. She prayed to whoever would listen that her friends were still alive. The very thought of being here, trapped in this vile, apocalyptic-looking world all alone was enough to make her want to cry.  
She pried her hands from where they had been keeping a death grip on her thighs, ignoring the painful grooves she’d left in her skin. She was still virtually immobile with the state her legs were in, which meant that before anything else, she would need to find some kind of support. She couldn’t crawl down to the Colony. 

It was hard to ignore the chilling, dark sky pressing in on her, but perhaps if she focused on a simple task like finding a tool for her to walk with, she could pretend that all was well for a moment or two. 

_It’ll be fine. I’ll find Shulk and Dunban and maybe Melia, and then we can fix this._ She thought that together, her and those three would be able to think rationally, and hopefully form a solution of some kind.

She shuffled over to the entryway of the regeneration chamber room on her knees, examining the front of the strange building for anything of use. The area outside seemed to be devoid of anything, save for the bits of leftover rubble from construction of the place. She frowned; she would have to look back inside.  
This time, however, she had the light on her side, even if it wasn’t the bright daylight she would’ve liked.  
She hesitantly approached the white, metal door, unsure of how to make it open again. She reached out and pressed a hand against the cold surface. There was a _woosh_ sort of sound, and suddenly, the door flickered once, twice, and dissolved into nothingness. Fiora shuddered. She’d never been fond of the way High Entian doors and mechanisms worked.  
She moved to crawl into the darkness of the chamber, but stopped short just before the entry. She didn’t have any kind of light, and she was sure that the door would simply reappear as soon as she was inside.

_Come on, Fiora. Think._

She was in the process of coming up with a plan when she heard it.

_BANG._

Something that sounded like a gunshot rang through the still, stale air, shattering the silence. 

She jolted, her head snapping up. It was sudden, a sharp, harsh noise, the last thing she’d ever expected to hear.

Her heart leaped into her throat; was someone here?  
But it dropped back into her stomach just as quickly.  
_If there is, they’re in trouble._

Fiora turned and scrambled out of the chamber’s doorway, the search for something to help her safely walk forgotten. She felt like a wild animal, running around on all fours, but she didn’t have the strength to care. She had to find them, the person who needed help. Not only for them, but for herself.

Before she really knew what she was doing, she was trying to stand. She stumbled, pushing herself to her feet. Somehow, moments later, she was walking—running, even. She was falling, tripping, and slamming her knees into the ground again and again. Blood ran down her shins, but she could hardly feel the pain.  
Somewhere at the back of her mind, Fiora knew that there was a problem here. She hardly had any regard for her body, carelessly throwing herself around like this. It seemed that a side effect of returning to a vulnerable body after spending so much time in a practically invincible one had its drawbacks. She would have to change her habits, but not now. Right now, all she wanted was to see someone else; to know that she wasn’t alone.

She barely registered her surroundings as she blindly barreled down the hills toward the dark buildings of the Colony. Her bare feet screamed in pain as they hit the streets, grass giving way to stone. The houses loomed in on all sides, shadowy and foreboding. She ignored, on purpose, the way they all looked as if they hadn’t been inhabited for months.  
Her sight was blurred, desperation emptying her head of any rational thought. She wasn’t sure exactly why, but in that moment the urge to see another person was more powerful than anything else in the world. She wanted to hear another voice. She hoped she wasn’t too late; she wasn’t sure what she would do if whoever this was turned out to be dead by the time she arrived. She couldn’t take the thought of having her hope ripped away from her again—like a repeat of waking in her Mechon body, terrified and alone.

She heard a shout, followed by another shot being fired off. The noise was far closer now.

“I’m coming,” she cried out, her voice scratching her throat, “hold on!”

She nearly collided with the brick wall of a building as she turned into the alleyway. She recovered a second later, throwing out a hand to steady her shaking body.  
Her breath came out in gasps, and she looked up.  
Three things registered at once:

First, someone was trapped at the end of the alleyway, pushed up against the wall. 

Second, right in front of Fiora, blocking the person’s exit, was a scraggly, thin Volff. It snarled savagely, tail lashing. Odd wisps of darkness clung to its pelt, sliding from its back like mist, giving it a ghostly appearance. There was something not quite right about the canine creature, but Fiora couldn’t put a finger on what it was.

Third and finally, pointed at the Volff was a startlingly familiar rifle. She heard someone utter a curse, and a faint sizzling sound reached her ears. Her eyes shot up to the face of the rifle’s owner.

She was met with a pair of wide, brown eyes. 

Fiora gasped in shock.

_“Sharla?”_


End file.
